An electric vehicle or a hybrid electric vehicle generally includes a motor and an inverter between a battery and wheels in order to drive the wheels by electric power accumulated in the battery.
The electric power accumulated in the battery is converted by the inverter of an inverter device etc. and is supplied to the motor and rotates the motor, and rotation of the motor is transmitted to the wheels and drives the wheels.
Conventionally, the inverter and the motor were mounted in separate places of the vehicle and a terminal of the inverter was connected to a terminal of the motor using a wire harness.
On the other hand, a structure of integrating an inverter with a motor for the purpose of cost reduction and miniaturization of an electric driving system from a battery to wheels has been proposed recently (Patent Reference 1 or 2).
<Invention Described in Patent Reference 1 or 2>
FIG. 11 is a conceptual diagram of an invention of integrating an inverter with a motor described in Patent Reference 1 or 2, and a power receiving box 100C is placed on a motor case 100 for accommodating a three-phase AC motor (an induction motor or a synchronous machine) and motor side terminals 100T for receiving three-phase AC electric power are attached to the power receiving box 100C and on the other hand, output terminals 200T of an inverter 200 for receiving a DC from a DC power source placed on the other part of a vehicle and converting the DC into an three-phase AC are attached. Then, a vibration-resistant connector targeted for the invention is used for supplying the three-phase AC electric power of the inverter 200 from the output terminals 200T to the motor side terminals 100T of the power receiving box 100C of the side of the motor case 100.
<Merit of Invention Described in Patent Reference 1 or 2>
After the motor case 100 and the inverter 200 are assembled separately, the inverter 200 is installed in the vicinity of the motor case 100 and also the output terminals 200T of the inverter 200 are connected to the motor side terminals 100T of the motor case 100 by the connector and thereby, the inverter 200 and the motor case 100 can be assembled and manufactured as separate modules and are only connected by the connector at the time of integration, so that manufacture is easy and cost can be reduced.
<Demerit of Invention Described in Patent Reference 1 or 2>
However, in such a configuration, a vibration phase difference between the inverter and the motor by vibration of the motor itself or vibration of a vehicle body at the time of driving is applied to the connector and the connector may be damaged. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a connector capable of withstanding such vibration.
Then, a connector described in Patent Reference 3 is disclosed as the connector capable of withstanding such vibration.